


What It Feels Like

by light_source



Series: High Heat [45]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M, San Francisco Giants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 12:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barry Zito starts Game 5 of the NLCS - a win-or-go-home game that's rank with desperation - and he surprises everyone, including himself.  But even in victory, there's something missing, something he's just beginning to put his finger on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What It Feels Like

**Author's Note:**

> The baseball facts are mostly canon; _the rest is fiction, the product of the writer's imagination, never happened, never will._

**Friday, October 19, 2012**  
 **San Francisco at St. Louis**  
 **NLCS Game 5**

The disaster that strikes in the fourth inning is all too familiar to Barry Zito.

//

The pressure’s on, but it’s OK, you’re OK with it. You’ve pitched elimination games before. You’ve got your good stuff, all four pitches working.

Three shutout innings later you are fine and light and loose. You’ve struck out seven, _fuck yeah seven_ , and you’ve just set down their MVP hitter swinging.

Then disaster shoves its way into the game like a guy jamming his hand in the elevator doors. You snag a comebacker and spin around for the easy throw-out to second, but the ball slides in too low and catches the corner of the bag. The shortstop misses the random angle and the runner from third scores.

Wipe your mouth on that knobby bone on the side of your wrist. Your sweat tastes like metal and salt, like the time you chipped a tooth on the handlebars of your bike.

So what if there’s guys at the corners? You’re only one out away from being done.

Then - the edges are fizzling a little here - you give up a walk. Their shortstop, who’s more glove than bat, singles to center, scoring two more. The roar between your ears sounds like the Concorde taking off. Your shoulders are bunching up around your neck.

You relax a little when the pitcher comes up, a guy who’s three-for-fifty.

No problem. _You got this._

And then the motherfucker lays down a perfect little backspinning bunt, and your All-Star third baseman has to scramble over himself himself to get to it.

The bunt scores the runner from third, and the pitcher, who runs like an old guy, beats out the throw to first.

The ball’s burning a hole in your hand.

//

It’s utterly familiar. But for once it’s not Zito’s inning that’s falling apart. Instead, the disaster is happening to Lance Lynn, the Cards’ rookie right-hander. Zito is the three-for-fifty pitcher who lays down the game-changing bunt.

Four-for-fifty one, now.

No one would have expected it. Least of all Zito. It’s win-or-go-home tonight, and the mood in the clubhouse before the game was quiet, watchful, as though everyone was carefully rationing what little hope was left.

And Zito’s first three innings didn’t do much to bolster anyone’s confidence - three hits, a stolen bag, a walk.

//

_What it feels like._

When Zito squares up in the batter’s box, he slides his eyes up the third base line slyly, without so much as tipping his chin, just enough to see David Freese is playing way back. When he crouches and the ball meets the bat with a ping, he drops his right shoulder and rises up, sprinting so hard that when his foot hits the bag, his leg guard flies off and he nearly trips over it.

From well behind third, Freese hurls himself infield towards the ball, but his barehand throw to first is late and off-line. Allen Craig has to leap sideways to snag it.

Zito hobbles back to first base, winded, his mouth half-open and his hands on his head. The first-base coach high-fives him so hard it stings right through the batting glove. Zito realizes it’s the first time he’s ever seen the stonefaced Roberto Kelly, _El Sombre,_ with a shit-eating grin on his face.

_What it feels like._

//

It’s simple: he’s stopped pushing. On the the way back to the dugout to get his glove, Zito shakes his head in amazement, in disgust that it’s taken him so long. It’s so obvious, and so right.

In the bottom of the fifth, everything starts to click.

The Cards’ rookie shortstop Pete Kozma gets some good wood on Zito’s first pitch, lining the ball hard to right. Pence tears towards it, his long legs churning, cleats chucking up divots. With a last-minute burst of speed, he slides in on both knees like an altar boy, palms cupped for the wafer. When he closes hand and glove on the ball and raises his clasped hands reverently, joyously, to the sky, Zito‘s face goes blank, just blank, with disbelief, and then he finds himself screaming _well, fuck m_ e before he remembers the cameras.

The next batter, the pinch-hitter Shane Robinson, fires a line drive straight through the gap between first and second. But the shining net of defense holds; Scutaro tracks it and slumps to his knees for it and snags it. He rolls back up to his feet and sidearms the ball effortlessly to Belt for the out.

When the next batter, Jon Jay, grounds out to third, Mike Matheny spits his gum over the dugout lip and blows into his hands to warm them.

//

In the sixth inning, when he strikes out Carlos Beltran swinging, Zito doesn’t circle the mound as usual. Instead, he just stands there thoughtfully, hip cocked and eyes level, basking in Beltran’s glare. He keeps his face blank as Beltran dumps his bat and hurls his batting gloves into the dirt, where the batboy has to scramble for them.

Carlos Beltran spent a few months as a Giant in 2011, traded after the All-Star break for the Giants’ top pitching prospect, a righty named Zack Wheeler. At first everyone on the team was psyched. Beltran was gonna be their ticket to the postseason, the guy who’d claimed the Spanish-language rights to Reggie Jackson’s old nickname, _Señor Octubre._ But in spite of Beltran’s reputation as a heavy hitter, the Giants’ front office had required the Mets to pay out the remaining four million bucks on his contract.

Once Carlos Beltran arrived in San Francisco, his new teammates had realized why he’d come so relatively cheap. Beltran immediately announced that he would play left field, not center, relegating Nate Schierholtz to the bench. He’d also laid claim to Bruce Bochy’s uni number, 15 - Mike Murphy had barely had time to get the jersey numbers re-sewn before Beltran’s first game. And then there was the parade of minor injuries, a stubbed finger, a strained ankle, back spasms, that kept him out of play for much of the rest of the season. With the press he was distant, condescending, and one day, when Hank Schulman called Beltran _imperial_ , the label stuck.

No one on the team has much to say about Beltran. The Giants’ fans, on the other hand, have quite a bit. In this series, the crowds at AT&T have booed Beltran every time he’s come up to bat.

At the time, Zito remembers, he’d felt bad for Beltran, a guy who rarely smiled and made a hidey-hole for himself in the corner of the dugout. Zito had found himself making excuses for Beltran - _c’mon, guys, he’s not that bad, he’s just got one of those faces._ It had been easy for Zito to identify with Beltran, a guy whose contract was a lot more impressive than his performance.

Now Zito recognizes what he’s known, at some level, all along. He hates Beltran, straight up. And while he’s enjoying every moment of Beltran’s walk of shame back to the dugout, Zito smiles a little to himself, knowing that when Carlos gets there, everyone’ll be looking at him sideways, smirking.

//

In the eighth, Zito’s still in the game and it’s still a shutout. When Beltran pecks at a slow-but-still-nasty fastball and flies out, Zito sees Bochy begin to shuffle up the dugout steps. Zito knows why the skipper’s coming for the ball. Barry allowed Jon Jay to reach with a single, and he’ll probably steal.

Besides, Zito’s thirty-four years old and he’s thrown a hundred and fifteen pitches. It’s time.

And yet. Zito’s stomach churns in rage and frustration. He chews the inside of his lip, waiting. Bochy’s walks to the mound are always slow and deliberate, the way he does everything, and tonight the stroll seems to be happening in slow motion. Bochy nods towards the bullpen, taps his right arm.

Zito’s face flushes with shame as he realizes how exposed he is, standing out here waiting to be fired in front of a stadium full of silent, shocked Cards fans. He takes off his cap, rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand, and rakes his hands through his sweat-matted hair. He’s so distracted that he hardly even notices until they’re on him - Crawford, Scutaro, Sandoval, Belt - the whole fucking infield. And it’s not a mound conference; they’re not just there to strategize about how to get Jay out.

Scoots is smiling, that little-kid grin that’s just his bottom teeth, murmuring _you deed eet_ in his soft, high-pitched voice. Crawford pounds his glove on Barry’s back, yelling _you da man, Zeets, you da ma_ n. The Panda’s saying something in Spanish, or maybe English; Zito can’t get it but it doesn’t matter.

And Posey’s there, right up in Barry’s face, his blue eyes skewed to the side because, after all, Buster fucking hates him. Posey thwacks his mitt against ZIto’s chest in congratulations. He’s mumbling something Barry can’t hear.

//

In the postseason, the players’ wives and girlfriends travel with the team, so the plane’s bigger and boarding’s more complicated than usual. The tensions of the postseason, the elimination games, the long flights and longer waits, have begun to take their toll. Now, in the fluorescent glare of the private departure lounge, everyone is exhausted and disheveled, wanting nothing more than sleep and home.

As they shuffle slowly down the carpeted jetway, Zito’s pitching arm is still throbbing from the nearly eight innings he threw tonight. In spite of the trainer’s icing sleeve, in spite of the long hot shower and the blast of cold night air on the walk out to the bus, he’s still hot and tense and sweating like crazy. His left hand’s wrangling the handle of his carryon, his wrist racked with the raffia handles of half a dozen designer shopping bags. Amber, who grew up in St. Louis, spent most of her time here shopping with her sisters and her high-school girlfriends. Zito figures they’ll need a new walk-in closet for all the stuff she got. Amber herself is leaning on him, her nails digging in to his forearm as she hobbles on her five-inch Christian Louboutins.

When a trickle of sweat snakes down the side of his neck, he shrugs his shoulder to his cheek to swipe it dry. That’s when he catches sight of George Kontos up ahead, leaning against the jet-bridge wall like a gangster in an old movie, crossed arms straining the shirt tight over his well-defined pecs, one leg kicked out. He’s smirking at Amber, his dark eyes half-shut and frankly suggestive. And then he looks up at Zito. When their eyes meet, Kontos raises both eyebrows and grins insolently.

 _Jesus Christ, he might as well wink,_ thinks Zito.

And then Zito sees Kontos’s gaze shift back to Amber. As Kontos’s eyes narrow and his mouth curves into a lopsided grin, Zito glances down and sees Amber’s face in profile. She’s smiling back at Kontos, her half-closed eyes mirroring his, her face lit up in a way that makes Zito stop breathing.

_What it feels like._

//

East of the Sierras, the plane hits rough air and begins to buck and sputter. The flight attendants slip noiselessly down the darkened aisle like spies, checking seatbelts. They don’t want to wake anyone unless absolutely necessary. Only Theriot’s still awake, his face all greens and blues in the light of his laptop.

When he feels the flight attendant’s fingers lift the hem of his sweater, Zito startles awake. Then he’s smiling sheepishly as she leans in close, her perfume alarming his nose, murmuring - _sorry, just a seatbelt check_. When she moves on past him, he laces his fingers and stretches out his arms - his left shoulder is still heavy and dense and tight. In the window seat next to him, Amber is fast asleep. She’s wrapped herself in a fleece blanket, a pink mohair beanie pulled down over her ears, her head snugged up against a pillow that’s wedged between the seatback and the wall.

Zito sighs and rolls his shoulders, one at a time, against the tweed fabric of the seat back, enjoying the roughness on his skin. He won’t be able to get back to sleep now, with San Francisco only an hour or so away.

And then he notices it, three or four rows up, that left arm draped across the seatback: the long thin fingers, a bracelet that’s like a string of black chiclets, no wedding ring. In the half-light, Zito can barely make out the edges of the face he’s seeking. Slowly, Lincecum’s head swivels around and he snags Zito’s glance with a single eye. Barry can see Tim’s smiling over his shoulder, his eyes half-closed, drowsy. As their eyes lock and hold the gaze without blinking, Tim raises his eyebrow in a way that makes Zito’s blood begin to heat. His hips are suddenly tight and restless under the seatbelt.

//

The hollow roar of the jet engines soothes Zito and it lets him think. His mind drifts back a few years, to his thirtieth birthday.

Thirtieth birthdays are bad enough; this one had poked its head out of the misery of Barry’s worst season ever. By the end of April 2008 he’d been 0 and 6, his ERA north of seven. Bochy had relegated him to the bullpen for a few starts, but even that hadn’t helped. When he’d returned to the starting rotation in the first week of May, Zito’d only lasted five innings against the Pirates and taken his seventh loss of the season.

On the morning of May 13, his thirtieth birthday, Barry had awakened to partly cloudy skies and an empty bed. On the kitchen counter Tim had left a note, _dave g, later,_ next to a half-drunk cup of coffee.

That day’s game against the Astros had done nothing to improve Zito’s mood. Matt Cain’d gotten both the win and his second big-league homer. As soon as decently possible, Zito had slipped past the scrum of guys high-fiving and butt-slapping, downstairs into the clubhouse in search of Lincecum, who was nowhere to be found.

Kevin Frandsen, on the DL and up to his armpits in the whirlpool, had looked at him funny when he’d asked where Tim was. - I think he’s watching video with Rags and them, he’d said, - eh?

But Tim wasn’t in either of the video rooms, so Barry, at loose ends, had finished the workout he’d begun in the morning, lifting and an hour of cardio. By the time he’d showered and gotten out to the parking lot, it had been fully dark.

As he’d eased himself into the front seat of the car, his delts and lats aching, Zito had felt something under his left hip about the size and shape of a Swiss Army knife. He’d fished it out: a roll of cherry lifesavers, his childhood favorite. He’d tucked it in his jeans pocket, too tired to think about how it’d gotten there.

Then, when he’d gone to put the key in the ignition, he’d noticed another one, a single cellophane-wrapped cherry lifesaver this time, balanced on the steering column. He’d unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth - sour, sweet, utterly familiar.

When he’d pulled into the driveway of his Marina apartment, Tim’s car was in the other space in the garage. On his way up the steps, Zito’d found another lifesaver perched on the top of the mailbox, and another inside the front door on the hall table. The first piece of candy had made him realize he was ravenous, and he’d crunched down on it, feeling empty all over and oddly desperate. So he’d unwrapped another, and as his tongue swirled the candy against the roof of his mouth, the tang made his nose sting. He was beginning to see it. There’d been another one, and another, one on the edge of every third stair.

When he’d finally turned the corner into the bedroom, his fists were crackling with cellophane wrappers.

Lincecum was there in bed, his head propped on his pitching arm, his grin a flash of light in the darkness.

\- You thought I forgot, you asshole, Tim had said, - but there’s thirty of ‘em, count, you have to find ‘em all. Before.

Without saying a word, Zito had turned, toed off his shoes, and dropped his gym bag on the chair next to the closet. Then he’d sat down on the corner of the bed, out of Tim’s reach.

\- Just to get you started, there’s always fourteen in a roll of lifesavers, Lincecum had been saying, - there’s

But he hadn’t bothered to finish, because when Zito sank onto his back, his fingers on his temples and his eyes clamped shut, Tim had hooked his hands under his armpits and dragged him up to the pillows, and Barry had just let him - amazed, in some old part of his brain, by Tim’s upper-body strength. Even though he’d still had most of his clothes on, Barry had curled himself up like a shrimp, suddenly cold. And then he’d felt Tim enfold him from behind, his breath on Barry’s neck, the cool skin of his forearms, the uncompromising hands. Wrapped there in darkness and his lover’s arms, he’d felt the knot of frustration and disappointment begin to loosen in his chest.

When Zito had finally warmed up enough to feel his hands, he’d turned over, and Tim was waiting there, both hands open to cup his jaws. His eyes were all Barry could see, huge and dark and stern, until he felt Tim’s mouth on his, warm and liquid, a mouth that promised the kid pleasures of candy and the grown-up pleasures of sex.

\- You thought I forgot, Tim had murmured again, breaking the kiss, stroking the dark circle under Barry’s eye with his thumb. - There’s nothing about you I’m gonna forget. You oughta know that by now.

After a while, Tim had rolled them over, their mouths still locked in a kiss, and begun to undress Barry blind, his fingers calm and definite in the darkness. It hadn’t taken long for Zito to sink into the quiet of the bed, to let Tim unfold him from what was left of the day. His hair, still wet from the shower, had printed damp and cool on the pillowcase, soothing the dry skin of his cheek. As each layer was peeled away, his skin had grown flushed and tight with wanting. And then it’d been slow, agonizingly and deliciously slow, Tim’s hands and tongue on his skin. Befuddled with desire, Barry had begun to realize what he hadn’t known before about what his body could feel like - the insides of his elbows, the tendons on the backs of his hands, all the places Tim had stroked, palms and thumb and fingers, as he’d taken Zito’s cock in his mouth.

//

Though the turbulence has subsided, the flight path now smooth and effortless, Zito’s still wide awake. He traces the nails of his right hand along the inside of his forearm, and when his skin sings back to him, he remembers what it felt like.

//

Every time he’d thought he was about to come - breath stifled, toes curling, his thighs jammed hard against Tim’s shoulders - Tim had pulled off. With his warm, wet tongue, he’d set off to awaken some other patch of skin, his slick hand working Zito’s cock to keep the connection alive.

Only when Zito had squirmed and groaned and kept shoving Tim’s shoulders aside in frustration had Tim finally paused and sucked in a long breath and taken him insanely deep, the muscles in his mouth and throat pulsing with an intensity that had made Zito’s ears ring, till finally, with a rush, he’d come long and hard, his body on fire and his heart mobbing his throat.

They’d lain there just like that, Zito’s shoulder half-off the bed, his hair dreadlocked from thrashing against the pillows. After a while, Tim had kicked off what was left of the covers and settled up against Zito’s side. He’d reached over and turned Zito’s face towards his for a kiss that was salty and still faintly cherry-tasting. His lips were soft as a girl’s.

Some time later, ZIto found he could once again focus his eyes, and he’d just lain there awhile, savoring the buzz of pleasure radiating out from his hips, picking out the shapes of the continents in the ceiling plaster. And then Tim had said quietly - I’m going downstairs for something to drink, these fucking lifesavers make me thirsty, and when I get back, you’re gonna fuck me till I’m blind and deaf.

He’d crawled over Zito and hopped easily to his feet. And then he’d sauntered through the bedroom door, his bare ass the most nearly perfect thing Zito’d ever seen, feet crackling on the cellophane wrappers that had fallen on the floor.

 

                                                          _:: to be continued ::_

 

 

 

.

 


End file.
